


Dibs

by Oras



Category: Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-24 15:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9768857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oras/pseuds/Oras
Summary: Dick and Wally are students at the same college. They happen to follow the same subject and decide to work together. But as all students know, group projects never work out the way you want them to.





	1. Week 1: Unusual

Wally was in his third year in college and had to retake some subjects he failed in the previous years. He was making his homework in the train and even after doing the same subject for two years—now going into three—he had no clue what the subject was about, only that he didn’t give two damns about it. It was called Writing Workshop and all the students had to read a book that was written by a comedian and then write an essay, imitating the comedian’s writing style. 

It was a fun subject, if one cared about writing. But that was something Wally didn’t really care for. He was all for science and engineering, but writing? That was just not up his alley. He’d read the book in a jiffy the day before, even stayed up late to finish it. It was a funny book, Wally would admit that. But recreating the comedian’s work was a pain in the ass. 

Wally was often known as the ‘funny’ guy in class, but he never really made any effort to be funny. 

Wait.

That was a lie.

Wally definitely made efforts _to be liked_. He even changed himself for a while, forcing himself to be happy even when he wasn’t and helping others with their problems even though he had plenty of his own. His jokes were all made up on the spot though, so you can’t quite call that effort. 

Wally was typing away on his laptop, trying to at least get something on paper for feedback when someone sat next to him. The man had short black hair, and was wearing a shirt that looked like it was more expensive than his monthly rent. Something in his gut told him that he knew this man, he just didn’t know from where. He knew he was a student at his school, but he couldn’t remember which class… Was it during Education 2? Or maybe during said Writing Workshop? He tried not to stop his typing and not to get caught glancing over at the man. He tried, really, so when this man looked at him and suddenly talked to him, Wally wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

“Busy on the homework Sherley gave us?”

“…Sherley? We have her for Made in America, don’t we?”

“You’re not working on the homework for that?” The man asked, quite confused over why Wally had written over fourteen pages.

“We had homework for MiA?” Wally asked, suddenly feeling cold sweat creep up on his shoulders and back. “…I’m gonna be dead, she’ll have my skin for this.” Not even Wally was able to get that old hag to like him. If there was any teacher in the school that he hated, it had to be her. She was the worst teacher he had ever met, someone who just did not understand that the shit she gave during her lessons, could easily be done at home. And that meant that all the students came to school for nothing, because they literally did all the work at home.

The man laughed, shook his head and then smiled at Wally. “Nahh, all we had to do was remember in which states were which wars. You’ll be fine,” he tried, but upon seeing Wally not calming down, he reached for his bag and found a ball of paper. “Here, I made a cheat-sheet last week. It’s a bit crumpled, but it should still work like a charm,” he offered.

Wally gladly accepted the crumpled ball, his fear from Sherley definitely winning over. Even though the entire class hated her, no one wanted her mad against them. She was such an idiot to quarrel with and in the end, because she is the teacher, she’d always win. Even though she was definitely wrong. 

He opened the ball and looked at what was written there and he figured it shouldn’t be too hard. He already knew most of it, so it should be doable. He looked over at the man and then sheepishly smiled, rubbed his neck and cleared his throat. “Uhm, thanks… On a different note, I have no clue what your name is,” he awkwardly laughed.

“Dude same.” The two looked at each other and then suddenly burst out in laughter, crying out and making way too much noise in their train compartment. The guy wiped at his cheeks, a huge smile plastered on his face. “My name is Dick, nice to meet you… _Again_ ,” he chuckled as he gave him his hand.

“Wally. That’s an unusual name to have, Dick,” he commented as he gladly shook Dick’s hand.

“It’s short for Richard,” Dick extended.

“That makes even less sense…”

He grinned and shrugged. “I suppose so. So what are you making?”

Wally sighed, slumping in his seat and groaning miserably. “Writing Workshop assignment. You know that Matthew gave us that article on how to find reliable sources?”

“Yeah, he was all excited about it during class.”

“There was a backside,” Wally commented dryly.

“There was a backside!?” Dick nearly screamed, suddenly feeling scared as well. He swallowed and for the first few seconds stared into space as if he were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Then, he probably realised that was the wrong tunnel, because never has Wally seen someone grab for their notes as fast as he saw Dick do it. He started to jot down whatever was on his mind about reliable sources, scratchily writing down;

_‘Wikipedia ain’t one of them.’_

He then started to write down countless of reasons why Wikipedia was not a good place for sources. All the while Wally was trying to memorise the fifty states to begin with, because the idiot had no clue where the hell Idaho was.

*

They had their second class of Writing Workshop this week. They usually have two classes of every subject, every week. Sometimes the teacher would get ill and there’d be no class, when that happened there would either be an extra lesson or a ‘study session’ with the class. This could happen at someone’s house or somewhere at school. If the weather was nice, they’d do it outside, but since it was winter, ain’t nobody was going out there.

Dick and Wally were sitting next to each other, Dick hunched over his laptop and Wally relaxed back in his chair. His red flannel shirt was starting to get wrinkly at the bottom and he was thinking about buying an iron, but even then he’d have no clue how to do it properly without burning his clothes. 

He could ask one of his female friends if they knew how to do it…

“Wallace, what is your answer for text number two?” Matthew spoke suddenly. 

Wally snapped outside of his bubble and cleared his throat, looking through his notes to see if he had the answer or if he had to bullshit his way through. He was in luck, he seemed to have the answer written down, but he wasn’t quite sure if he could read it. 

The hell.. was that a _b or an_ h?

“Uhm, the text is unreliable.”

“Good. Why?”

“There is no author mentioned, no names, and there are no sources listed. There are also quite a few spelling mistakes, so that would lower the credibility of the author and text as well,” he answered, though his voice wavered a bit in-between sentences. He hated when that happened, when he got a turn unexpectedly. And when he couldn’t read his handwriting, but that was entirely on him. 

“Well done, that’s entirely correct. Richard, text three please?”

“Uh, it’s reliable. It’s an official article of the newspaper _The Gothamite_ , you can look the author up, it has listed sources and you can trace all the statistics that are used?” he answered, but had no idea if it’s right. 

“Good, well done. Uhm, so the next one—“

Wally poked Dick with his elbow and gave him a sly smile. “Well done for someone who made it an hour before,” he grinned.

“It better be good, I swear I’ve never been so scared in my life,’ Dick exhaled, holding his hand over his heart and looking wore down. 

“Why though,” Wally whispered, “Matthew is like, the nicest teacher we’ve got.”

“He’s friends with my dad, if I screw this up, he’ll know immediately,” Dick whispered back, moving his hand over his throat and imitating death. He grinned after it though and grabbed his pen to jot down the right answer for the next text.

Wally hummed a bit, crossing his arms over each other and leaning back with his seat. “Who’s your dad?” he asked out of plain curiosity. He just really didn’t feel like paying any attention now.

Dick glanced over at Wally, contemplating answering. When Matthew turned away, he whispered back, “Bruce Wayne.”

Apparently, Wally leaned back too much, because before he even understood what was happening, he fell back with his chair, hit his head on the wall and fell on the ground. It could’ve been the sock of finding out that the guy sitting next to him is worth millions, or maybe he just really hated Writing Workshop. Both seemed a legitimate enough reason to cause a scene in Wally’s mind.

“…You okay?” Dick asked, his voice back to normal as everyone’s attention was turned to them. 

“I’m alive,” Wally grunted, feeling over his head and standing back up again. He wiped the dust of his pants and shirt, sighing when he saw that now he needed to purchase a sewing kit as well. “Sadly,” he murmured after it, grabbing his chair and placing it back behind his table.

Dick chuckled and shook his head. 

After that Wally followed the lesson soundly and was more occupied with on-and-off daydreaming about all kinds of things. They started to do an exercise about all different kinds of comedians and which books they’ve written and to see if the students were able to guess their writing style on the basis of a text that was given to them. It was all ‘mehh’ to Wally and the only reason he was here was to get a good grade. He didn’t like being here after two years, especially since all of these students were younger than him. 

And that age gap was just simply too weird for him. 

“Okay, listen up. This year we’ll be doing something new—“

“You mean I can’t re-use my previous essays?” Wally interrupted, suddenly paying attention.

“They were garbage anyway, Wallace,” the man joked, but gave him a big smile. “Maybe this time you’ll actually pass the class, so pick a good partner.”

Dick suddenly grabbed a hold of his sleeve, blankly looked Wally in the eye. 

“Dibs.”

“You sure? This is my third time doing this subject.”

“Dibs.”

“I suck though….”

“Dibs.”

“But I—“

“Wallace… What do I have?”

“…You have dibs,” Wally slowly repeated, starting to get scared from the desperate lost look in Dick’s eyes. “You do know you’re gonna fail now?”

“Worth it, I hate these people.”

Wally jumped up from his chair, smiling broadly and almost yelling back, “Dude same!” 

And this was the start of a terrible partnership that was definitely worth the figurative roller-coaster ride.


	2. I Normally Don't Do This

“Okay, so we’re supposed to come up with essay ideas for our formative augmentative essay…” Wally started, looking at his shoes and redoing the laces.

“Yes, that’s right.” Dick merely watched in mild disinterest at what Wally was doing, but was clearly listening. He shoved his hands in his pockets and cocked an eyebrow, still waiting for Wally to get to his point. 

“…So, why are we at a bowling alley?” Wally asked, standing back up and feeling the weight of a green bowling ball, already knowing he wouldn’t be able to throw that one without hitting someone in the face with it.

Dick raised his eyebrow and scoffed, as if the answer was supposed to be so obvious. “To get to know each other better. You see, I know how to beat the system,” Dick explained, to which Wally blankly blinked, because he had no idea if this spoiled rich kid was being serious and about what system he was talking about. “You see, every group project always goes horribly wrong. One always does more than the other, and that’s because they don’t know each other well enough.”

Wally looked at the lane and then back at Dick. He kind of felt like smacking him and hugging him at the same time. Simply because now he was skipping his third year class, _Professional Product_ , which was also given by Sherley, and that meant Wally would even travel to the fucking moon to avoid coming. He felt like smacking him just ‘cause, really. 

“Okay, fair enough… Still weird, but fair enough.”

Dick grinned, soft laughter escaping his mouth as he shook his head and grabbed an orange bowling ball. “You’re just afraid I’m gonna beat you.”

“I am actually. My pride’s a precious thing,” Wally grinned back and looked at the small computer. Their names were already in it and they had about one and a half hours to fill. “Loser pays?”

“Deal.”

*

“I cannot believe you won four times in a row. Just… how?” Wally grumbled as he snatched his wallet from his pants and waited for the cashier to notice him. 

Dick chuckled and smiled at him, giving him a small wink. “Secret.” 

Wally scoffed and shook his head. All was going well, but somehow Dick managed to get strikes every single time whereas he only managed to get spares. It was good, but not enough to beat Dick. Oh well, he’d beat him at any other game, he was sure of it. At least, that was what he was thinking and praying for.

He paid the lady and then looked at Dick, it was around three p.m. at that point. They could get lunch or they could go to school and catch the last lesson at six. What did they have again? Pretty sure it was literature, but he couldn’t be too sure. And even if that was the case, it meant that Dick didn’t have it, since it was Literature 3 for third year students. Wally frowned, lost in thought about what he was going to do next. He didn’t particularly mind the literature lessons, they had a great teacher that made the subject a lot more fun than it actually was. At least, in Wally’s opinion. 

But if he stayed, they could discuss their essay ideas and Wally wouldn’t have to fail the subject _again._

“Wanna grab a bite to eat?” he offered, at least figuring out if Dick had the time to even discuss these matters. 

Dick looked up from his phone, surprised for a second and gave him a grin, “Sure, I’ll pay for that one.”

The bowling alley was near the shopping district, Wally knew a few good cafes where he’d go with his friends and family. He always liked going towards such places with someone he didn’t know quite well, it easily broke the ice. He was sure that Dick was used to fancier places though, being the son of Bruce Wayne and all. If he remembered correctly, Dick was even on the cover of a few magazines, but he never thought about it. He never had a reason to care up till now, he’d have to remember to ask if Dick had any embarrassing stories to tell about a shoot. 

They arrived at a café named _Gendarme_ , Wally never quite understood why they named it that way, but they served the best coco and sandwiches he had ever tasted in his life. Better than his mom’s and aunt’s sandwiches _together_. And those two could make pretty damn tasty sandwiches, if Wally said so himself. But then again, he’d eat everything if he was hungry. Which he was all the time, fast metabolism and all.

He took a seat near the window, he liked to look outside and see what the people on the streets were doing. Somehow that was always quite entertaining to him, to see people lead their life. 

“You been here before?” Dick asked, taking his coat off and draping it over the chair. 

Wally turned his gaze to Dick, letting the question sit for a while before he answered. “Yeah, quite often actually,” he hummed.

“I noticed,” he grinned and then took a seat. Wally raised an eyebrow, silently challenging him to elaborate, to which Dick gladly accepted the challenge. “You stepped in without hesitation or looking around.”

“You sure I wasn’t just comfortable?” he chuckled, shaking his head.

“Unless you truly enjoy spending time with me, it’d be unlikely,” Dick stated, grabbing the menu and glancing over the words. “And you immediately went for this seat. Made me think you’re a regular and you claimed it.” He moved his eyes back to Wally, putting the menu down. “Amiright?”

“Well… you’re not wrong,” Wally muttered, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “Hope this place isn’t too old-fashioned for your taste.”

Dick laughed and looked around. The place was a bit dim, the weather outside being dark and grey and not helping in lighting the place up. The walls were made of brick, everywhere you looked was wood and they even had a bar at the back. It felt warm and quite cosy with all the decorations. “I like it,” he observed. “It’s… different from all the glitz and glam.”

“It’s affordable,” Wally coughed, trying to play it off. “And they serve amazing sandwiches.”

“They can’t be better than Alfred’s, he’s amazing in the kitchen. Like magic, really,” Dick pondered, looking at the ceiling. “When I was a kid I’d watch him prepare dinner and the way he ran around in the kitchen was just…. It was weird for me, but also kinda cool,” he explained.

Wally hummed and grabbed the menu, he already knew what he was gonna get, but he still wanted to check if there were any new things on the menu. There weren’t many people at the Gendarme. Never were. It was awesome if you wanted to talk and talk without being interrupted by the loud noise, but it also meant that the place wouldn’t be open for much sooner, which broke Wally’s heart. He’d been coming here ever since he was a kid. 

“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say he’s the butler?” 

“Oh, yeah. He’s… well, he’s more than just a butler,” he explained, looking at Wally and trying to explain it in a way he’d understand. “He raised Bruce, and he helped me all the time and taught everyone so much… he’s more than a butler, you know?”

“He’s family,” Wally confirmed for Dick, nodding and understanding what he meant. “Yeah, I can get that. We have a few really good family friends, but we don’t call them friends anymore. They’re just family now,” Wally chuckled. “We have the Garricks and Crandalls, they’re wonderful families and my uncle, cousin and I really look up to them. They’re like our grandpas and grandmas though, they’re so old-school.” Wally laughed thinking about it. He’d done many things to get in trouble, just so they could scold him. 

It made Dick smile and he laughed with him, he wanted to know more about him. “Do you have brothers or sisters?” he asked out of pure curiosity.

“No, I’m an only child,” he told, “I live with my parents, but I’m often at my uncle and aunt’s place. And I often hang out with my little cousin, Bart. I suppose that he’s like a little brother to me.” The waitress finally came and Dick and Wally gave their orders, when she left Wally started to speak again. “How about you? I don’t really know anything about the Waynes,” he admitted. He stretched his right arm, slowly feeling the burn from bowling. He’d never thought that his muscles could ache from throwing balls at cones. 

“Well… We live with Bruce, Alfred and my brothers and sister. I’m the oldest, then we have Jay, Timmy, Dami and my sister Cass.” He could already smell the sandwiches being made and damn, he didn’t know he was this hungry. He might order another one, if it’s good. “It’s kinda like a zoo at our place, even if we live in a manor.”

“How come?”

“Uhm, well, Jason and Tim are always fighting. Damian and Tim are also fighting a lot. Basically, Tim’s kinda… he’s distancing himself a lot from the family,” he frowned, actually feeling bad thinking about it. “And Bruce he just… he doesn’t know how to handle it. And Damian’s mom and Bruce, they’re sort of fighting and then they’re not and she just comes and goes whenever she feels like, but Damian’s always _alone_. And Jay… Jay just wants Bruce’s approval, but he’s so busy, he just doesn’t notice…” He turned quiet for a while. Hadn’t really told anyone this and was silently ushering himself to _shut the fuck up._

Wally felt… flabbergasted. Didn’t quite know what to say to that. He could say something about his own family to make Dick not feel like an idiot, but he could also change the subject. It’s not like he found it weird what Dick talked about, the guy probably just felt like they became somewhat friends after their bowling-adventure. Yet, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information. It was only after their food arrived, after they received their foodgasms, that Wally dared to speak again. “…So, how are you then?”

“You mean in the manor?” he asked, his mouth half full. Wally nodded and he thought about it. “I.. I know I’m not the best brother, but I always try to help. I try to be there for everybody, but it’s hard… Y’know, two brothers hate one brother and when I try to help him, they get mad and when I try to help them, they just kinda dismiss the fact that I do… the only one that’s cool is Cass, I swear. She’s the reason I’m still sane,” he snorted, coughing when a piece of lettuce got stuck in his throat. He took a glass of water and drank half of it, trying to breathe and not die. 

“You saw the light or something?” Wally snickered, passing him a napkin. “Sounds to me like you’re doing everything you can,” he shrugged. “I don’t really have that… I mean I often get into fights with my dad… and then I just go to my aunt’s place for a few days. Or sometimes I go to Bart’s place and I see something’s wrong… but he never shares it with me. He’s… he lies a lot, I guess,” he concluded. “He doesn’t want to burden people, so he lies and gives a different truth. He’s good at it too, which makes me think something’s not going right at his place...”

Dick nodded, getting what Wally meant. Even though Tm wouldn’t necessarily lie about something, he would refuse to speak about it. It didn’t matter how much Dick tried to press, he wouldn’t let anything go. 

“Guess we both don’t have the stereotypical fairy tale family, huh?” Dick chuckled, taking a sip from his coco and _damn_ , this was better than Alfie’s…. Please don’t let him know he thought that.

“You mean selling your daughter to a witch and then locking her up in a tower?” He grinned. “Well… It’d be hard since I don’t have a sister, but I could always dress Bart up in a dress,” he laughed, thinking about the image. 

Dick shuddered thinking about Cass in a dress. She’d look amazing, but she’d be pissed as hell at whoever forced her to wear that. The last thing Dick wanted was her getting angry at him. It’d be like having the devil after you. 

“So how’s your sandwich?” Wally asked, interrupting Dick’s train of thought.

“Well, he’s probably not so well, considering I’m eating it and all,” Dick joked, taking another bite of it.

“Ha-ha, you know what I meant,” Wally half-heartedly glares. 

Dick grinned, “It’s good. Like… even better than Alfie’s, which is a crime. Don’t tell him I said that. Wally moved his hand to his mouth, closed it like there was a zipper, and then winked. “That your move to get the ladies?” Dick snorted.

“You tell me, did ya get wooed?” he grinned, earning a piece of lettuce thrown at his face and now stuck on his cheek. “Ew, I’m not into foodporn, Dickie.” He grabbed the piece of lettuce and popped it into his mouth. 

“You seem to be awfully good at it, though.”

“Ah, so you did get wooed,” Wally grinned, moving both his eyebrows up and down like a maniac. 

*

After they both ate and finished their cocoas, they walked back to Wally’s car. He’d driven them here, saying it’d be a lot quicker than public transport. Truthfully, he just hated public transport. He felt like he needed a chemical bath after every trip, some people just did not understand what a shower, deodorant or personal hygiene in general meant. Which meant that Wally had to endure about an hour’s worth of torture just to get to school. 

He usually didn’t go to school by car. He bought the thing secondhanded and it _devoured_ gas. Wally just did not have enough money for an everyday trip to school. Luckily, his aunt sneaked him a fifty dollar bill in his pocket the day prior. He tried to decline her generous offer, but we all know he wanted that damn money. _He needed it._

They both stepped in and Wally put his key into the ignition, starting the engine. They were driving on the highway, listening to the music on the radio. It was only a twenty minute ride to Wally’s house, but he promised to drop Dick off. That meant he had to go to the other side of the city to drop him off and then drive back to his own place. 

He didn’t mind, really. But if he had known where the manor was, he would have thought twice about offering to drive him. Especially since Dick arrived in a luxurious car—probably worth more than his house—that was driven by a member of Bruce Wayne’s staff. Oh well, at least now they could talk a bit more. Maybe even discuss essay ideas, like their initial idea was. 

“About our essay,” Wally started, his eyes still facing the road. “Do you have any ideas?”

“I have a few, two serious ones and a fun one,” Dick offered. “My first idea was about the importance of bees

“Very important,” Wally nodded.

“Then I was thinking about photography during the civil war.” Wally blinked, it was certainly an interesting topic, but he hadn’t thought that _Dick_ of all people would come up with something like that. He opened his mouth, scrunching his eyes a bit, but Dick interrupted him before he could speak. “Tim gave me the idea. He loves photography,” he explained, “apparently there was an entire photography revolution during the civil war. Everyone knew what was happening faster than ever before.”

“That… is actually an amazing topic,” Wally pondered. “I’d recommend you not to use it though.”

Dick looked up in surprise, silently asking for him to continue what he meant. When he didn’t answer, he rolled his eyes and spoke, “Why?”

“Because we have Made in America. We’re supposed to make a documentary, remember? You can use that topic with your team,” he suggested. “I’d do it, but I don’t have a team,” he shrugged, his eyes still plastered on the road. “What about your third?”

“Comparing the American sex education system to the Dutch one.”

“Why? Does the Dutch one suck that bad?” Wally asked.

“No, ours does.”

“Ah, on that road.” He thought about it. He did get sex ed. in high school, but if it really prepared him for later life… he wasn’t quite sure. Wally learnt by trial and error… and google. Lots of google. “That sounds awesome actually. I’m in,” he grinned. “Think the Dutch do it better?”

“We’re about to find out, aren’t we?” he laughed. 

They’d been driving for about half an hour now, chit-chatting about anything and everything. They’d soon get into traffic though, since it was around five-thirty and therefore rush hour. Wally turned the music down, trying to concentrate better on the signs, to which Dick made a few jokes how ridiculous that actually is. Wally of course countered with the fact that at least he _has_ a driving licence and should therefore shut his face. They’d been laughing, bantering an bickering back and forth. It didn’t look like there was any traffic in front of them. 

“How fast can we go here?” Dick asked, not seeing any signs about it.

“About 100 kilometres an hour, that’s usually the case,” he answered. “you can see it if you look at the other drivers as well.”

Wally frowned, something was going on in the distance. For some reason there were cars slowing down and moving to different lanes. Maybe there was an accident or road construction… At the moment there were three cars in front him. The car directly in front of him changed lanes and went off the highway. The other car, which was the farthest away from him, changed lanes and the second car hit his breaks and changed lanes as well, which caused Wally to hit _his_ breaks if he didn’t want to crash into the guy.

“Fucking idiot, why’d he do tha—Shit!”

In front of him, dangerously nearing, was a car that was driving 40 with his hazard light on. Wally slammed on his brakes, almost hitting the car in front of him and putting his own hazard lights on. He looked at the different lanes, needing to change immediately, since he was now driving _forty_ on a fucking _highway_. Luckily for him there weren’t many cars at the moment. He managed to change lanes and quickly speed up, shaking a bit in the process. He turned his hazard light off, looked in the mirror to see the slow car driving. 

“That _idiot_ … do you know… Jesus,” he panted, the adrenaline still pumping though his body. “40 on a highway… he’s got a death wish…”

Dick panted, shaken as well. He hadn’t even seen the car in front of him, didn’t know how slow it was going. If it wasn’t for Wally’s reflexes they would have crashed into the other car by now… “That… he’s insane. He shouldn’t even _be_ on the highway,” Dick frowned. To be honest, he felt like his lunch was coming back up, but he was sure he could keep it in. That it was just the nerves… “I didn’t even see it,” he breathed. 

Wally nodded, still frowning. He looked even more alert than ever, desperately wanting to leave the highway. His GPS seemed to have the same idea, as it gave instructions to get off it. “Me neither, ‘else I’d changed lanes sooner,” he gritted through his teeth. He looked _pissed_. 

*

It had been quiet, both of them still a bit in shock over what happened. It was only after a while, when Wally arrived at the manor, that Dick opened his mouth again. “Hey… uhm, maybe you wanna come in? I don’t think it’s a good idea to drive back, to be honest,” he tried to offer. 

Wally nodded. Truth be told, he didn’t feel like driving at all. He had never experienced something like that in the timespan he had his driving licence. Never saw it with his parents or other family members and friends either. He took a breath and slowly exhaled, taking the key out of the ignition and stepping out of the car. He locked it when Dick was out too and then walked with him to the manor. 

Soon enough a butler walked to the door and opened it for them. “Master Dick, I see you brought a friend?” the man greets.

“Hey Alfie, this is Wally. Uhm, he staying over for tonight.”

Wally smiled, extending his hand and awkwardly waiting till Alfred did the same thing. Alfred shook the man’s hand and then gave him a nod. “I shall put another plate on the dinner table then,” he said, walking back to the kitchen. 

Dick walked over to the living room, looking who else was there. Jason was looking TV, Damian was drawing on the windowsill and Tim was sitting near the fireplace with his laptop. It was odd, even for Dick. He almost never saw all of his brothers together. And they weren’t even fighting…

“I’m back,” Dick called, taking off his coat and draping it over the couch. “Brought a friend,” he dragged out. “Maybe you should say ‘Hi’?”

“I though you said there wouldn’t be any visitors?” Jay looked up, scrunching his eyebrows. 

“That was the plan untill we almost crashed because of an idiot on the highway.” That perked the attention of his three brothers up. Tim stopped typing and glanced over towards them and Jason even shut off the TV. Damian walked over though, sitting on the couch where Jason sat. 

“You okay?” Tim asked.

“Yeah Timmy, we’re—“

“I was asking the driver,” he muttered, staring blankly at Dick. 

Dick coughed a meek _‘I knew that’_ and then looked over at Wally, waiting for him to explain what happened. Wally breathed in and rubbed his neck, thinking about where to start. “Basically, there was a car that drove 40 where you’re supposed to drive 100 and we nearly crashed into him.”

_Yeah, that summed it up._

Damian scoffed, a demeaning look plastered over his face when he looked at Wally. “The only reason why there was a possibility of crashing was because of this man’s incapable and preposterous driving.”

“Damian!” Dick scolded, frowning at him immediately. 

“It’s because of him they’re not in a hospital,” Tim corrected for him. 

Daman tsk’ed, opening his mouth to counter what Tim had said, when Jason rolled his eyes and threw a pillow in his face. Tim chuckled and turned his gaze back to his laptop, missing the glare Jason sent him. 

“It’s okay,” Wally started. “I’m used to spoiled little brats,” he smiled, his tone like he was giving him a compliment. 

“Excuse me?” Damian gasped, too shocked to look angry at the man.

“You heard me.”

Jason stretched out, putting his hands behind his head and smirked. “He can stay,” he chuckled. 

Dick sighed, still frowning and shook his head. He jumped over the couch and slumped into it, feeling drained. Wally grabbed his phone and gave a short _‘I need to make a call_ ’ before walking back to the hallway they came from. Dick looked at his brothers and he truly felt like giving them all a punch in the face. Except for Timmy. Where was Cass when you needed her?

“Damian, you can’t act like that in front of guests, especially not my friends,” he scolded again. “Do you even get that it’s not a nice thing to do?”

“Of course he doesn’t, why else would he keep doing it?” Jason grunted, laying down on the couch and poking Damian with his feet. 

Damian tsk’ed and glared at his two brothers. He grabbed his sketch book and pencils and walked to the hallway. The brothers could hear his footsteps going up the stairs. Dick sighed, feeling even more tired than first. He knew for a fact that his youngest brother wasn’t going to eat with the others. For now he simply had to shrug it off. He reacted out of line and if he wanted to hold a pity party then _fine_. He’d deal with it later. For now he needed to check if Wally was okay… and if he liked pot roast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liked it, hated it or have some general tips? Leave a comment if you'd like!
> 
> Fun fact!  
> I actually went bowling on a first date and a day later me and a friend of mine almost crashed into a car driving 40 on the highway. Not only that, there used to be a cafe near my house called 'De Veldwachter' which roughly translates to Gendarme. It's sadly gone now though. I miss my hot cocoa... T_T


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